MODULE 4: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
struggle. Boo carries the wounded Jem back to Atticus’s
Black is beautiful... Barrack Obama, Michael Jordan, Denzel
Washington, Oprah Winfrey, Naomi Campbell. They are just
some of the African-American icons of our times. While these
personalities have gained power and recognition for who they
are and what they have become, the history of America
documents bitter tales of slavery in the southern states where
these Africans who were forcibly uprooted from their homeland
were treated as mere merchandise. The abhorrent practice of
slavery is predicated on the oppressive ideology of "white
supremacy" and the novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes us to
heart of this problem.
SYNOPSIS
- Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed
father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb.
Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but
Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is
reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One
summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has
come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio
acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated
with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place.
The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother,
Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without
venturing outside.
- Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it.
She and Jem find gifts apparently left for them in a knothole of
a tree on the Radley property. Dill returns the following
summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the story of
Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the
children to try to see life from another person’s perspective
before making judgments. But, on Dill’s last night in Maycomb
for the summer, the three sneak onto the Radley property,
where Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his pants in
the ensuing escape. When he returns for them, he finds them
mended and hung over the fence. The next winter, Jem and
Scout find more presents in the tree, presumably left by the
mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs the knothole
with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another
neighbor’s house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket
on Scout’s shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that
Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants and the
presents.
- To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community,
Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson,
who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of
Atticus’s decision, Jem and Scout are subjected to abuse from
other children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the
family compound on Finch’s Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches’
black cook, takes them to the local black church, where the
warm and close-knit community largely embraces the children.
- Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the
next summer. Dill, who is supposed to live with his “new father”
in another town, runs away and comes to Maycomb. Tom
Robinson’s trial begins, and when the accused man is placed
in the local jail, a mob gathers to lynch him. Atticus faces the
mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout, who have
sneaked out of the house, soon join him. Scout recognizes one
of the men, and her polite questioning about his son shames
him into dispersing the mob. Goo
- At the trial itself, the children sit in the “colored balcony” with
the town’s black citizens. Atticus provides clear evidence that
the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, are lying: in
fact, Mayella propositioned Tom Robinson, was caught by her
father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame and
guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on
Mayella’s face are from wounds that her father inflicted; upon
discovering her with Tom, he called her a whore and beat her.
Yet, despite the significant evidence pointing to Tom’s
innocence, the all-white jury convicts him. The innocent Tom
later tries to escape from prison and is shot to death. In the
aftermath of the trial, Jem’s faith in justice is badly shaken, and
he lapses into despondency and doubt.
- Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge
have made a fool out of him, and he vows revenge. He
menaces Tom Robinson’s widow, tries to break into the judge’s
house, and finally attacks Jem and Scout as they walk home
from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes, however,
saving the children and stabbing Ewell fatally during the
house, where the sheriff, in order to protect Boo, insists that
Ewell tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. After
sitting with Scout for a while, Boo disappears once more into
the Radley house.
- Later, Scout feels as though she can finally imagine what life
is like for Boo. He has become a human being to her at last.
With this realization, Scout embraces her father’s advice to
practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates that
her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her
faith in human goodness.
 CHARACTERS
o JEAN LOUISE ‘SCOUT’ FINCH
- The narrator and protagonist of the story. She
lives with her father, Atticus, her brother, Jem,
and their black cook, Calpurnia, in Maycomb.
- She is intelligent and, by the standards of her
time and place, a tomboy. Scout has a combative
streak and a basic faith in the goodness of the
people in her community. As the novel
progresses, this faith is tested by the hatred and
prejudice that emerge during Tom Robinson’s
trial. Scout eventually develops a more grown-up
perspective that enables her to appreciate human
goodness without ignoring human evil.
o ATTICUS FINCH
- Scout and Jem’s father, a lawyer in Maycomb
descended from an old local family. A widower
with a dry sense of humor, Atticus has instilled in
his children his strong sense of morality and
justice.
- He is one of the few residents of Maycomb
committed to racial equality. When he agrees to
defend Tom Robinson, a black man charged with
raping a white woman, he exposes himself and
his family to the anger of the white community.
With his strongly held convictions, wisdom, and
empathy, Atticus functions as the novel’s moral
backbone.
o JEM FINCH
- Scout’s brother and constant playmate at the
beginning of the story. Jeremy Atticus “Jem”
Finch is something of a typical American boy,
refusing to back down from dares and fantasizing
about playing football. Four years older than
Scout, he gradually separates himself from her
games, but he remains her close companion and
protector throughout the novel.
- Jem moves into adolescence during the story,
and his ideals are shaken badly by the evil and
injustice that he perceives during the trial of Tom
Robinson.
o AUNT ALEXANDRA
- Atticus’s sister, a strong-willed woman with a
fierce devotion to her family. Alexandra is the
perfect Southern lady, and her commitment to
propriety and tradition often leads her to clash
with Scout.
o ARTHUR “BOO” RADLEY
- A recluse who never sets foot outside his
house, Boo dominates the imaginations of Jem,
Scout, and Dill.
- He is a powerful symbol of goodness swathed in
an initial shroud of creepiness, leaving little
presents for Scout and Jem and emerging at an
opportune moment to save the children. An
intelligent child emotionally damaged by his cruel
father, Boo provides an example of the threat that
evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one
of the novel’s “mockingbirds,” a good person
injured by the evil of mankind.
o CALPURNIA
- The Finches’ black cook. Calpurnia is a stern
disciplinarian and the children’s bridge between
the white world and her own black community.
o CHARLES BAKER “DILL” HARRIS
- Jem and Scout’s summer neighbor and friend.
Dill is a diminutive, confident boy with an active
 imagination. He becomes fascinated with Boo million copies. Two years after the book’s publication, an
Radley and represents the perspective of Academy Award–winning film version of the novel, starring
childhood innocence throughout the novel. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, was produced. Meanwhile, the
o TOM ROBINSON author herself had retreated from the public eye: she avoided
- The black field hand accused of rape. Tom is interviews, declined to write the screenplay for the film version,
one of the novel’s “mockingbirds,” an important and published only a few short pieces after 1961.
symbol of innocence destroyed by evil. - After To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee didn’t publish any other
o HELEN ROBINSON novels, didn’t work on the screenplay for the film, and retreated
- Wife of Tom Robinson from the public eye, eventually returning to Monroeville.
Because Lee had been so reclusive, and because her literary
o SPENCE ROBINSON
output was incredibly celebrated but extremely limited, the
- Father of Tom Robinson discovery of Go Set a Watchman, and its publication in 2015,
o MISS MAUDIE ATKINSON was an enormous literary event.
- The Finches’ neighbor, a sharp-tongued widow, - But controversy plagued nearly every step of the publication
and an old friend of the family. Miss Maudie is of Go Set a Watchman. In November 2014, Harper Lee’s sister
almost the same age as Atticus’s younger and longtime caretaker passed away. A few months later,
brother, Jack. She shares Atticus’s passion for Harper Lee’s publishers announced that they was planning to
justice and is the children’s best friend among release a novel that Lee had completed in the mid-1950s,
Maycomb’s adults. before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Although Lee’s lawyer
o BOB EWELL (Robert Lee E. Ewell) claimed that she found the manuscript shortly after Lee’s sister
- A drunken, mostly unemployed member of died, the manuscript had actually been discovered in 2011. Lee
Maycomb’s poorest family. In his knowingly died in Monroeville in 2016.
wrongful accusation that Tom Robinson raped his
daughter, Ewell represents the dark side of the
South: ignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-
filled racial prejudice.
o MAYELLA (Violet) EWELL
- Bob Ewell’s abused, lonely, unhappy daughter.
Though one can pity Mayella because of her
overbearing father, one cannot pardon her for her
shameful indictment of Tom Robinson.
o MR. GILMER
- Attorney of Ewells
o HECK TATE
- The sheriff of Maycomb and a major witness at
Tom Robinson’s trial. Heck is a decent man who
tries to protect the innocent from danger.
o MR. WALTER CUNNINGHAM
- A poor farmer and part of the mob that seeks to
lynch Tom Robinson at the jail. Mr. Cunningham
displays his human goodness when Scout’s
politeness compels him to disperse the men at
the jail.
o WALTER CUNNINGHAM
- Son of Mr. Walter Cunningham and classmate
of Scout. Walter cannot afford lunch one day at
school and accidentally gets Scout in trouble.
o MRS. HENRY LAFAYETTE DUBOSE
- An elderly, ill-tempered, racist woman who lives
near the Finches. Although Jem believes that
Mrs. Dubose is a thoroughly bad woman, Atticus
admires her for the courage with which she
battles her morphine addiction.

HARPER LEE (Biography)

- Nelle Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville,
Alabama, a small Southern town very similar to Maycomb,
Alabama, where her two novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and
Go Set a Watchman, are set. Like Atticus Finch, the father of
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the narrator and protagonist of both
novels, Lee’s father was a lawyer. Among Lee’s childhood
friends was the future novelist and essayist Truman Capote,
from whom she drew inspiration for the character Dill in To Kill
a Mockingbird.
- In 1949, Lee moved to New York City to become a writer,
and in 1957, she sent the manuscript for Go Set a
Watchman to publishers. J.B. Lippincott, a now-defunct
publishing company, bought the novel. After Lee’s editor read
the manuscript of Go Set a Watchman, she suggested that Lee
she write a new book from the heroine’s perspective that
focused on her childhood. So Lee took the setting and
characters of Go Set a Watchman and revised them into the
manuscript that became To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Critical response to To Kill a Mockingbird was mixed: a
number of critics found the narrative voice of a nine-year-old
girl unconvincing and called the novel overly moralistic.
Nevertheless, in the racially charged atmosphere of the early
1960s, the book became an enormous popular success,
winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and selling over fifteen